Lost Time

One

When Lance woke up, it was because of the cold. He longed for his sister, who never failed to let him cuddle with her until he felt warm again, but then he remembered the sleek pod that Papa made him get into before he fell asleep. Already he missed his sister.

"Andrea, look! There's a kid over there!" A voice sounded from somewhere behind him. Scared, he hugged his Klanmüirl closer to his chest. These must be the ones his papa told him to watch for, who would care for him while he was away. Lance regarded the figures as they approached, frowning at their appearances. One of them had long, dark hair, braided into twin tails, and dark skin just like his, though her eyes were a dark brown. The other was just a slight little thing, with pale skin and fair hair, thick glasses resting on the bridge of her nose.

"Hey there, little guy," the one with fair hair greeted gently, waving her arm. "I'm Annie. What's your name?"

"Lance," he responded. "I'm a prince."

"I'm sure you are, sweetheart. Can you tell me where your parents are?"

"I don't know. My Papa told me that he can't take care of me until after the war." Both women exchanged a look, frowning, before the darker skinned one held out her hand.

"Alright, Lance, why don't you come with us? We can look after you until your papa comes to get you." She waited patiently for Lance to reach for her before she surged forward to pick him up, sitting him on her hip. "I'm Ezmeralda, but you can call me Da-da for now, okay?"

"Okay. Can we go eat? I'm hungry."

"What do you eat?" Annie chirped, leaning in close to Lance's face. "Are you human?"

"What's a human?"

"Andrea, let him alone. We can talk after you get some food, Lance."

--

Annie and Da-da spent a lot of time with Lance after that. If they weren't at Work, they were Home, which meant that Lance was showered in affection and taught how to look and act just like a human child. Da-da explained to him that humans were the strongest species on the planet, but they were still very afraid of things they didn't understand, so it was important to hide his ears and the scales on his cheekbones from sight. Sometimes, Da-da would speak in a strange language, but it wasn't long until Lance picked it up as well.

After a few months, he stopped referring to them as Annie and Da-da, calling them Mom and Mama, instead. At the end of his sixth period- year, that was what humans called them- he thought he was acting just like a human child.

When he was eight, he asked Mom why he had such a weird-looking stuffed bear. She told him that he and Allura had been inseparable for as long as she'd known him. Lance laughed, because his mom had known him all his life—right?

Most nights, if the weather allowed it, Lance would sit outside and watch the stars with Mama. She would point to them and ask if he'd been there before, smiling like she knew something he didn't. Every night, he'd give her the same weird look, asking himself why his mama was so stuck on the dreams he told them about as a child- he was a prince from space sent away to hide on Earth during some sort of intergalactic war? Maybe it was because she knew, even back then, that there was something about the night sky that called to him. He hated to say it, or think it, really, but as much as he loved his mothers and as happy as he was in his house with his new baby sister, it never felt like home.

At eleven, Lance met a boy who said he was from Samoa. The boy was shy, and almost didn't talk to Lance, but Lance prided himself on persistence. Hunk, he soon found, was the very best friend a person could find. They'd spend hours making plans- Lance piloting a ship that Hunk built, but in space- and sharing secrets. Hunk told him about the small, flimsy rabbit toy that never left his pocket, and Lance shyly admitted to Allura being his very best friend. Something about the creature always made him sad, he confessed one afternoon during their after-school snack.

At fifteen, Lance started to dream again. Colors melted into shapes, that became people, until he was small again, but he looked inhuman, playing games with a beautiful young woman with dark skin and shocking white hair. She held him sometimes, telling him stories of a legendary warrior, promising that soon they would be home for the Juniberry Festival. "Search for juniberries while we're apart, and give them to me when you come back," she told him. He woke up the next morning to his younger siblings asking why he was crying.

"Lance, you mustn't get in the way of the paladins. They have to be able to get in their Lions quickly, okay?"

"But, 'Lura, Blue wanted to talk to me. She says I can fly with her someday!" Allura smiled at him, her scales glowing faintly.

"I'm sure you will, my little warrior, but right now you have to train with your Klanmüirl so Blue can help defend us."

At sixteen, he wanted to scream—so close to going into space, only to be shut out of the program because of one student. How was he to know if the princess in his dream was real, now?

On his seventeenth birthday—Mom called it the day they 'found' him—he got the news that he would be put in the fighter pilot class, meaning he could go to space. Excitement like he'd never felt before bubbled in his chest, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd made dark blue swirls appear on his upper arms, ones that glowed as brightly as he'd felt. They faded when he concentrated on them, but the knowledge that they'd been there in the first place was burned into his memory.

He didn't tell his parents about it. They'd call him crazy, because humans don't have glowy arm swirls.